The house music faded away, and the craft beer drinking begins. It is loud, rattling. Screaming. The people who enjoy Craft Beer Crosscut 9.11.17: A Flight of Chaos, truly experiencing it, appear very different than those too fearful to invest in it. Some people laugh nervously, some look away anxiously, some stare at our stump crosscut beer flight board with jaws dropped. But others leaned right into it. Some sway with their eyes closed almost completely unaware of the other humans in Peaks and Pints’ bottle shop, taproom and restaurant in Tacoma’s Proctor District. Today’s beer flight was born from chaotic ramblings, interventions, violent actions and dystopian states. Some will run away in fear. Others will feel every malt and every hop pierce their inner beings. There is something so primal and relatable in this beer flight. If you’re open to it, it will tap into every emotion stored inside of you and set them free.
Omnipollo Mackaper Pale Ale
6% ABV, 38 IBU
First of all, Omnipollo Mackaper Pale Ale was brewed at Crazy Mountain Brewing Co. close to Vail, Colorado. Then, Mackaper — an Omnipollo pale ale built from equal parts malt, wheat and oats plus hopped profoundly with Mosaic and dry-hopped with Galaxy — isn’t just a beer, it’s also the name of a Stockholm-based band fusing jazzy, proggy, organ instrumentals with dreamy synthesizer pop and punctuating it all with chaotic ramblings. Bitter grapefruit pith emerges immediately, along with resin and passionfruit — the beer, not the band.
Shmaltz Star Trek Symbiosis
5.5% ABV
Star Trek: The Next Generation, the show that introduced us to the Borg and elevated the career of Patrick Stewart from theater to movies turns 30 this year. To celebrate, Shmaltz Brewing and Federation of Beers launched Star Trek Symbiosis, a collector’s edition hoppy wheat ale brewed with Centennial, Gladiator and Amarillo hops. The ale takes its name from the eponymous TNG episode, which is complicated to explain, but the Enterprise crew must violate the Prime Directive and intervene in an alien society’s internal matters. It shoves off with wheat malt and bright citrus hop flavors, then docks dry and smooth with floral, light hop. Make it so.
Loowit Dwarven Forge
8% ABV
Dwarven Forge makes essentially Lego sets for fantasy gamers. The company produces hundred of different miniature terrain pieces, each cast from either resin or what they call “Dwarvenite,” a custom variant of PVC, or polyvinyl chloride. Using these parts that look like dungeon walls, corridors, tombs and caverns. Just insert Dungeons & Dragons figurines and feel your geeky imagination swell. Loowit Brewing’s Dwarven Forge is a bourbon barrel-aged imperial red ale first brewed in December 2013. “ The hammer falls and the hammer strikes,” states the blacksmith dwarf on the bottle’s label. “Red hot steel sparks to life.” It pours a murky brown. It smashes the nose with dark fruits and a little vanilla. We dig the date sugar, raisin and bourbon on the tongue, although a bit thin … unlike the dwarf on the label.
Dystopian State Helmet Breaker
8.6% ABV, 72 IBU
“We live in an ambiguous world: violence, crime, riots,” says Dystopian State Brewing’s website. “We save the world one hashtag at a time. We love and we live in a progressively digitized world where technology is less of a choice and more of a default state. We are wired. We are plugged in. Where do we end and the robots begin? … The cyberworld is progressing and we are a mere century away from the cyborgs rising from the space dust and ending humanity, as we know it. … Clone wars, self-awareness is the name of the future. We have made peace with the persistent feeling of impending doom. … So f*** it and have a beer. We’re not sure about all that, but we are sure the Tacoma brewery’s Helmet Breaker is a delicious, sweet double IPA with a malty hop flavor.
Fat Head’s Head Hunter IPA
7.5% ABV, 87 IBU
“Uncivilized and aggressive, this West Coast styled IPA packs wicked hop flavors and aroma,” states Fat Head’s Brewing‘s hype about Head Hunter IPA. With multiple medals wrapped around its neck, Head Hunter is golden in color, with a light, thin head. On the nose, there’s an immediate citrus aroma. That citrus flavor continues in the beer’s taste, with a subtle, subdued pineapple flavor coming through, and a pine-y aftertaste emerges on the back end once consumed. Touting its aggressive hoppiness, Head Hunter’s bitterness isn’t overpowering, but is impactful and accents the overall citrus flavor well.
